Darwin’s Recessionary Tip: Act like a Beetle

Jonathan Guthrie
The Financial Times, 12 January 2009
The author citing Darwin’s ‘the Origin of Species’ says that there are parallels between biological and commercial competition. Management pundits prefer to give examples of golf and Shakespearean drama for executive audiences rather than cite the humble crawlers- beetles, whose adaptability makes them evolutionary superstars.
He feels that a company is very similar to any species in its natural drive to survive and expand. Companies and living organisms share the objective of generating surpluses, either of money or calorific energy and repeated deficits result in total destruction. In The Origin of Species Darwin writes of the relative “profitability” of adaptations while describing habitats as “economies”.
Darwin’s great insight about evolution was that species retain randomly occurring new features that improve their survival. Similarly, though in theory companies are supposed to adapt thanks to conscious strategy, actually the process can involve happenstance, hunches and blind panic.
Innovation can give both species and companies dominance within their environment.
Just as Darwin recognized that extinction was an integral part of evolution, similarly if current trends continue estate agents may soon become extinct.
Just as bad weather limits biodiversity, adverse macroeconomic conditions reduce the survival chances of businesses .The weakest will go under first.
A British government bent on intervention will nevertheless ignore the laisser faire implications of The Origin of Species. Darwin suggested it was futile to attempt to protect a wild species from destruction.
Meanwhile companies should hone their points of difference in order to survive in the most difficult trading conditions for decades. They are as subject as the birds and the bees to Darwin’s maxim that “each new species is produced and maintained by having some advantage over those with which it comes into competition”.
Darwin also warned against couplings between different species as they were sterile. This is also generally true of combinations of businesses with dissimilar work cultures.
The final recessionary tip offered by Darwinian ideology is, “It is not the strongest species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change.”
Therefore according to the author we must try and emulate the beetle as it is the only adaptable über-being. Whereas the role model animals pictured in the motivational posters sold by office suppliers, such as eagle and bears which are respectively noble and smart are collectively endangered.
==============================================================
These summaries from global top 100 business & management magazines, newspapers, websites & reports are published monthly in Business Leaders Digest which can be subscribed at a modest annual subscription of Indian Rs.600 only. To subscribe, email at busleadersdigest@gmail.com